The humanising influence of the revolution is beginning to be felt. Little by little the arbitrariness of the strong and the herd-like mentality of the weak are beginning to fade away, the entire mentality of society is slowly reorganizing itself on principles of citizenship, the strong are already not quite so quick to strike the weak, and the weak in turn, having realised their strength, are beginning to demand greater respect.

I bear my cross silently. Sometimes it is heavy, not so much as a result of the military situation, as of the cravenness and depravity of the civilian front. Politics is always a dirty business. I must now delve into it, yet still come out untainted.

Milyukov is resigning. His place has been taken by Tereschenko, and Kerensky has replaced Guchkova as War Minister. The ministry has been expanded by the addition of two socialists. A new current to the sea of senselessness and madness in which we are drowning.

“Either the revolution will swallow up the war, or the war will swallow up the revolution”. I fear that this really is the way in which history has posed the question.
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In the first path, the Russian Revolution will spread its influence to other countries. It will be the vanguard for a Europe-wide perturbation, which will accelerate the liquidation of the war, and created for this purpose new motivations and forces. The alternative is that the Russian Revolution will not engender a response on “the other side” of the divide, in which case the revolution risks being miscarried, strangled at birth by narrow national interests. After all, even a fool understands, that war and military dictatorship go hand in hand.

Source: Speech at a joint meeting of the Petrograd organizations of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party on the question of joining the coalition Provisional government Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries. Documents and materials. T.3, Part 1 M. 2000

As you left, you told me of the threat of Lenin’s followers. Can it really be that you do not understand, that the worst thing is not Lenin’s followers, but the dreadful profanities which persist in the hearth of every Russian home?

If the rot has reached such proportions in the army, that it can no longer offer resistance, why not say so openly, that the Russian revolutionary people may lay out its neck for the yoke of German militarism. Yet while you have but an ounce of powder left to you, youmust fight on! You have no right to raise the white flag of the German Emperor.

The residents of Ai-Todor are daily exposed to insults. Twenty five soldiers and sailors, beasts and savages to a man, have taken up residence in the manor. The commissar has announced to my parents-in-law that they are under arrest.

One unfortunate result of the reconstruction of the Government was the cancelling of Sazonoff's appointment as Ambassador in London. Sazonoff was so identified with the policy of the Imperial Government, more especially as regarded the question of Constanti- nople, that he was no longer considered a suitable representative of the new Russia. In telling me this, Tereschenko explained that, as he hoped to retain his services for the final peace negotiations, he was anxious that Sazonoff should not undertake a mission that might sooner or later discredit him in the eyes of the Russian public.
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He was to have left for London on May 16 together with our Labour delegates and Paleologue, who .was being replaced at the French Embassy by Noulens, and it was only on arriving at the station that he was handed a letter from Prince Lvoff requesting him to postpone his departure. Though several names were subsequently submitted to our Government, no Ambassador was ever appointed, and during the rest of the war M. Nabokoff continued to act as charge d'affaires.

In Paleologue I lost an old friend and colleague with whom, during three critical years, I had been closely associated and on whose loyal collaboration in furthering the common interests, which we both had so much at heart, I could always count. I was also very sorry to say good-bye to my new friends Will Thome and James O' Grady. They were such splendid types of the British working man that I had hoped that they would have impressed the workmen's delegates in the Soviet and made them understand that we were not fighting the Germans for imperialistic or capitalist aims\ But those delegates wxre not real working men. They were only demagogues. As O' Grady said to Thorne on their first visit to the Soviet : "Look at their hands ! Not one of them has done an honest day's work in his life! " They left Petrograd much depressed by their experiences both at the front and in the rear.

"Yes, it marks the end of a political era! ... Miliukov's presence was a last guarantee of fidelity to our diplomatic tradition. What could I do in London now? I very much fear that the immediate future will show Monsieur Albert Thomas what a mistake he has made in siding so openly with the Soviet against Miliukov!"

The arrival of friends, who had come to see me off, put an end to our conversation.

The two French socialist deputies, Cachin and Montet, and the two delegates of English socialism, O'Grady and Thorne, then entered the train. They had come straight from the Tauride Palace where they had spent the whole night conferring with the Soviet.

There was a dramatic climax for the general meeting of the Committee on Labor of the Advisory Commision of the Council of National Defense, when men whose combined fortunes represent many millions of dollars offered in person to work hand in hand with Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, in an effort to bring about full co-operation between this Government, capital, and labour, for the more efficient prosecution of the war.
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The millionaires who offered their services were John D. Rockefeller, Daniel Guggenheim, and Colgate Hoyt.

The capitalists, who were present at the invitation of Mr. Gompers, Chairman of the committee, listened for hours to accounts of the task ahead of this country, outlined by the English and Canadian representatives of labor, who arrived on American soil a week ago. Then several of them - and most of whom have had their quarrels with Gompers in the past - made brief address in which they pledged their support.

A few minutes later before this scene was staged, a resolution was introduced demanding that a movement be started in this country without delay to work out the problem of coordination between capital and labor along the lines which had been followed in England.